This is a story about vandalism
by dysprositos
Summary: Clint gets a rude awakening one Saturday morning, and his day goes downhill from there. Next thing he knows, he's dealing with the one person he'd sincerely hoped he'd never see again. Part 4 of 'The Ongoing Adventures of Clint and Cat.'
1. This morning is stupid

**My beta, irite, is the best beta eva.**

**Warnings: mild religious irreverence, mild angst, cats, mice, acrobatics.**

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"I swear to god," Clint mumbled into his pillow, face pressed deep into its fluffy surface, "If you don't stop making that noise, I'm going to bring you and your little friend down to R&D so Stark and Banner can experiment on you."

There were two beats of absolute perfect, unbroken silence.

And then, a loud, high-pitched _meow_.

Abruptly, Clint flung himself up and out of his bed in one fluid movement, using his momentum to somersault across his bed and land gracefully in front of his loud-mouthed cat.

The cat yawned pointedly, unimpressed with Clint's acrobatics, and, after a moment, Clint slumped. "Let me guess. Out of food? Or do you want to play with the mouse?" Without waiting for a reply (and yes, he _did _sometimes wait for a reply when talking to his cat), Clint wandered out of his room and towards the kitchen.

The cat's damn food dish was, predictably, empty. However, Cat just marched by his empty dish and jumped up next to the small rodent habitat that sat on a nearby table and pawed at the glass. Inside, a white mouse reached his paw up and placed it on the glass, too.

"Ah," Clint mused, voice dry. "Play time, then." He glanced at the clock on the coffee pot, which showed him that it was just after 6:00 AM, and then walked over to the mouse's cage and flicked the latch open.

With no sign of fear at all, the mouse nosed his way out of the cage and nuzzled up against Cat's cheek. Then, he bolted, the cat hot on his heels.

This was something that they did every day. Sometimes for hours. Once or twice, they'd even snuck out of his apartment using Cat's special high-tech cat door, but they always made it back in together. And Clint didn't worry that Cat was going to eat the mouse, as it had been Cat's great idea to adopt the rodent (well, Natasha's, too—they'd ganged up on him). Cat and the mouse had become friends after the mouse had escaped from R&D and invaded Clint's apartment rather rudely.

Which was how Clint found himself with not ONE, but TWO pets, a situation that was completely unprecedented in his life.

Cat, well, Cat had been kind of a special thing. Post-Manhattan, Clint had been doing his best impression of a self-destructive alcoholic, and he'd found Cat behind a bar after he'd gotten his ass kicked in a bar fight. The animal had promptly manipulated Clint into adopting him, which had worked out for the best—Clint had needed _something _to get his head out of his ass, and adopting a cat seemed to have done the trick. And then the stupid animal had proved to be a decent companion while Clint had been laid up after he'd been hurt on a mission. So he _supposed _Cat had earned his keep.

But the mouse? Clint wasn't so sure about that. And yet...he had a mouse habitat on his kitchen table, complete with wheel and other accessories that he just couldn't help picking up when he went to the pet store.

Huh.

Cat and Mouse were deeply entertained by their game of Cat and Mouse, so Clint decided to make himself some coffee and turn on the news. It was early, yeah, but not _ungodly _early. Earlier than he wanted to be up on a non-mission Saturday, though. Sure, he'd only been back at work for six months, but hey, he wanted a vacation. He frowned into his coffee cup, adding far more sugar than was strictly necessary, and then made his way to the couch and turned on the TV.

He was on TV.

Clint blinked once, twice, then took a deep drink of coffee. Then he looked back at the TV.

Yup, that was him all right.

He was tuned into the news, and there was an angry, exclamatory 'Breaking News!' banner across the bottom of the screen, and there was a helicopter filming 'him' as 'he' was perched on top of a building, firing flame arrows at...what?

The camera in the helicopter panned away from 'him' to 'his' target, and Clint scowled. 'He' was firing arrows at a billboard. The billboard wasn't important, but the 'message' his arrows spelled out _was_. It read, simply, 'Kneel.'

God fucking damn it.

Looked like he had to talk to Thor, and fast.

Seriously.

* * *

Clint stopped in his bedroom to grab his cell phone, and he saw that he had six new voicemails. This was not surprising at all, nor was the fact that they were all from Fury.

Did that man _ever _sleep?

Holding the phone to his ear, Clint managed to listen to the messages while herding his mouse back into his little habitat—he was a conscientious pet owner, god damn it...and he wasn't about to go running off and leave the damn mouse to get into his Froot Loops _again_. The gist of Fury's messages, as far as Clint could tell, was, 'So help me, Barton, if you're compromised again I'm going to kill you myself' and so Clint took a moment to send his boss what he hoped was a reassuring text message. It read, 'I have no fucking idea what's going on.'

The almost instant reply was, 'Report when you do.'

That settled, Clint headed out into the hall and, after a moment of deliberation, headed towards Natasha's apartment.

He knocked on her door, and she answered it quickly. She was, predictably, awake, although it looked like she'd just finished working out because she was wearing gym clothes and had her iPod clutched in one hand.

"What?" She asked, eyebrow raised. "You're up early. The world ending?"

"Might be," Clint answered, jaw tense. He pushed past her into her apartment and turned on her TV. The news was running replays of what had happened—apparently, 'he' had vanished shortly after he'd stopped watching.

Natasha watched the footage with a cool look on her face. When she saw the message, she frowned. "You're sure it's not you?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "I was _sleeping_,Nat." He paused, then added, "And my elbow doesn't stick out like that when I shoot."

She shrugged. "Thought I'd check." Then, "Probably Loki, then, right? Guess we'd better talk to Thor." Natasha looked longingly towards her bathroom. "Can I at least shower first?"

"Fury's been calling," Clint said by way of answer. He glanced pointedly down at his own pajamas, and Natasha tossed her iPod onto the couch next to her and stood.

"Fine, let's go."

Together, they went to the elevator. En route, Clint asked the empty space around him, "Hey, JARVIS, where's Thor this morning?" He'd been heading towards the communal floor, but it occurred to him now that it was, in fact, ass o'clock in the morning.

"Master Thor is in the communal living area, sir, as are the others. Director Fury has alerted everyone to the situation."

Well, that was good. Saved him the trouble. And it saved him from being on the receiving end of Tony's 'I got woken up before 10:00 AM' wrath. Clint could sympathize, but it wasn't Tony being impersonated on national television, now was it?

When Clint and Natasha made it to the common room, everyone was watching the news, coffee cups in hand. Their expressions more or less matched what Clint had been feeling when he'd seen the news himself.

As usual, it was Tony who broke the silence. "Busy morning, hey, Legolas?"

Clint scowled and threw himself onto an empty chair. "Yeah, I thought I'd get up early, make some vague, threatening statement insinuating that I was Loki or something. Thought it seemed like a _great _idea." He glared at Thor. "What the hell, man? I thought your people had a handle on your brother." Clint stood and began to pace. "You said, and I quote, 'He will not be released for millennia, if he is at all.' Well, sorry to tell you this, buddy, but it hasn't been millenia. It's been like, two weeks."

Okay, that wasn't fair. It had been well over a year since then, but the point stood. It had been _much _less than 'millennia.'

Thor looked annoyed when he replied, "There is no proof that your doppelganger was my brother. If Loki has escaped his prison, my father would have told me."

Clint wasn't really in the mood for his 'you don't have proof' thing. He sympathized, he really did. It had to be hard having Loki as a brother. But at the moment, Clint wasn't feeling especially sympathetic. "Yeah, right, because there're so many _other _people who'd put on my face just to...to..."

God damn it. It had been over a year. Well over a year. He'd been to the shrinks, had suffered through the hours of therapy. He was supposed to be _over _this.

But then, so much of that had hinged on the idea that he was never gonna see Loki again.

Steve stepped in then, saving Clint from trying to finish his sentence. "Guys, until we know for sure it's _not _Loki, let's work on the assumption that it _is_." He turned to Thor. "I need you to get in touch with your people, see if they know anything."

"I will see what I can do," Thor replied tersely. He stood and left the room, striding purposefully off to do...who knew what.

To the rest of them, Steve said, "It seems like he's trying to send a message to us specifically."

"Really?" Tony interrupted sarcastically. "And here I thought—"

"Why would he _want _to get our attention, though?" Bruce interrupted before Tony could finish whatever snarky thing he was trying to say. "Last time he had our attention...it went badly for him."

"Maybe he needs something," Natasha suggested. "Something he knows we have."

"Or maybe," Clint threw out, flopping back into his chair with a huff, "He's just an asshole and wants to gloat about how he got free."

That seemed the most likely explanation to him, honestly. And that _asshole_ was wearing his face to do it. As if he hadn't done enough already, as if he hadn't _taken _enough...

Something landed awkwardly in his lap, and Clint reached his hand down to pet the cat that was clawing him in the crotch trying to get comfortable. Immediately, the cat began to purr.

Steve said, "That's a possibility, true. We need more information. Does Fury have anything?"

Clint shrugged, but it was Natasha who answered. "He'll let us know when he does. No point in checking in before then."

"Then we're just waiting on Thor," Steve said.

"Fantastic," Tony muttered. "Perfect. Nothing like waiting on a god to get something done. I mean, the Christians have been waiting two thousand years—"

Natasha glared at him, and he was smart enough to take that as his cue to stop talking. Clint was thankful, because it was too _early _for this, not that there was ever a good time to deal with Loki, and Tony's inappropriate commentary wasn't helping anything. After all, Loki, had chosen to take _his _face, was fucking taunting him. Kneel. Right. Like that was _ever _going to happen again. No, if he ran into Loki, he wasn't going to _kneel_. He was going to put his boot right up Loki's ass.

...If he ran into Loki.

He could find Loki. Fuck it, Loki was probably looking for him. Why else would he do something so _pointed? _

Clint stood abruptly, dumping Cat unceremoniously onto the floor. The animal gave a disgruntled hiss before stalking over to Bruce, who scratched his ears absently.

To the room at large, Clint said, "I'm going to—"

"Absolutely not," Natasha interrupted calmly.

Clint whipped his head around to glare at her. "Nat, he's obviously—"

"Yeah, it's obvious, and since when do you do—"

"When it might save an innocent life—"

"Loki's not hurting anyone. He's committing _vandalism—"_

"That could change in a heartbeat, Nat, that guy's nuts—"

"Do you two have any plans of filling the rest of us in on what's going on here?" Steve interrupted, exasperated. Tony and Bruce both nodded in agreement, looking equally annoyed.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Clint here thinks he should go find Loki, since Loki's looking for him. He figures Loki wants something from him, so obviously he should figure out what that is and give it to him. Which is impressively _stupid_."

"If he's looking for me," Clint pointed out, "I could act as bait. We could bring him in. I'm not just gift-wrapping whatever the hell he wants and handing it over, Nat."

Steve considered this. He frowned. "I don't think this is a good idea. Loki's—"

He was interrupted by Thor re-entering the room.

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Huh. That was a little faster than two thousand years. What's up, Rapunzel?"

Thor stated decisively, "My brother has not left his prison. He remains on Asgard. My father checked the cell himself."

Everyone let that sink in for a moment.

Cat, who had settled onto Bruce's lap, stood up suddenly, arching his back. He snarled, seemingly at nothing, and then bolted from the room without even a glance behind him.

After a beat, Bruce said mildly, "Well...that's...unexpected."

No one was sure if he meant Thor's news or the cat.

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**Thanks for reading!**

**This is going to be three fairly-short chapters long. I've mostly lost the ability to write long chapters, and I'm experimenting with shorter fic, so. **

**As always, reviews are appreciated.**


	2. Don't tell me you didn't see this coming

**Bunches of thanks to my awesome beta, irite, for, um, betaing. Yes. That.**

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After Bruce's pronouncement, there were several beats of silence. Then, Clint looked at Natasha. "Guess we'd better report to Fury, huh?" He glanced towards the door that his cat had just scurried through. Honestly, what was the animal's problem?

Well, whatever. He'd given up trying to understand that cat about the third day he'd had it.

Natasha nodded, standing up. "You want to go into the office or just make a video call?"

Clint shrugged. At this point, he mostly wanted to go back to bed and pretend that this wasn't happening, but that didn't seem to be an option. Given Natasha's annoyed look, though, he answered, "We can go in. Whatever. We probably should, anyway. Fury probably wants us to at least check out the scene, right? Just let me get dressed first." He was, after all, still wearing his pajamas. They were comfy, but he didn't exactly think Fury would appreciate Tweety Bird.

Natasha looked at Steve and Thor. "You want to come in with us?"

Thor didn't answer, except to give a terse nod, but Steve said, "Yeah, we probably should. When are we gonna get going?"

"Give us half an hour," she answered. "We can meet in the garage and head over together. If you don't feel like waiting you can head over on your own."

"What, you're not going to invite us?" Tony asked, elbowing Bruce. "We might have something useful to offer! Something...science-y!"

Bruce, more usefully, said, "Have SHIELD send us their data on the, er, 'crime scene,' and we can analyze it and see if we can figure anything out."

"It's possible Fury's going to want you to come in and help the science team," Natasha mused, tapping her chin. "You wanna just come now?"

"Hell no," Tony replied. "I have better things to do. Like, you know, have breakfast."

Clint was immensely envious of that. Breakfast was definitely on his list of 'things I'd rather do than deal with some nutjob impersonating me.'

It was a long list.

He mumbled something about going to get ready and made a hasty exit, heading back towards the elevator. He felt a little bit better now that he had a purpose, but he still wasn't eager to deal with this. Or to deal with other people watching him try to deal with this.

Which was too bad; a moment later, Natasha caught up to him and asked, "Hey. You okay?"

Great, he wasn't going to get the reprieve he wanted. It was time for _that _talk. As if this whole situation wasn't bad enough, now he had to _talk _about it.

But he knew the importance of talking, now, and he knew that he could trust Natasha. The same held for everyone on his team, really, something they'd proven during his long recovery after his injury a year ago. So he sighed and answered, "Yeah, I'm fine."

He glanced over at Natasha, who'd raised an eyebrow, and clarified, "I mean, it sucks and I'm pissed off about it. Loki's mocking me. But I can't do anything about it right now." He stopped in front of the elevator, punching the button forcefully.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Natasha nod slowly. As the elevator opened for them, she said, "It's not going to be like last time. We know what we're dealing with now. And you won't be alone."

They stepped into the elevator, and Clint said, "I know." It was good to have the team on his side, but it didn't _matter _that they were more prepared. Sure, they'd be less surprised by the whole 'magic' thing, but that wasn't what he was worried about. What had happened to him...he'd been able to put it behind him. It was a thing that had happened, and that was that. It was over, wasn't gonna happen again, so he could forget it. But now?

Now that had changed. Now it wasn't the past anymore, it was the present.

They rode up in silence, Natasha thankfully not pressing Clint for more. He didn't know if he could explain what he felt. It wasn't like he expected Loki to show up with his magic scepter and brainwash him again. He _couldn't_. For one, SHIELD had kept the scepter, had it locked up in a vault about thirty stories underground. Clint had watched them shut the heavy door on it. Two, he was ready this time. He saw Loki, he was gonna put an arrow in his eye. No hesitation.

Honestly, he wasn't even sure what he was feeling.

But he knew Natasha would be there when he _did _figure it out. Same for everyone else, really.

It was a good feeling.

The two of them parted ways and headed to their separate apartments, and when Clint got inside and made his way to his bedroom, he heard a low growl coming from under the bed.

"What the shit is your problem, weirdo?" Clint asked, not even lifting up the covers to peer under the bed.

At his voice, Cat slunk out from under the bed, glancing side to side nervously. The coast was clear, evidently, and Cat jumped up onto the bed.

When Clint reached out a hand to pet him, though, he laid his ears back and flinched away with a _hiss_.

"Geez, okay. Whatever, asshole. I need to get dressed." Clint was well used to his cat's mood swings at this point. He started digging around through the laundry on his floor, trying to find something that was more or less clean.

Dressed, he headed back to the elevator (after, of course, he filled Cat's dishes and made sure his mouse had something to eat-he didn't know how long he was gonna be out, after all) and took it down to the garage. He was early, but Steve and Thor were already down there, standing next to an SUV in awkward silence.

Clint took the opportunity to snag the keys for the car on his way by the rack, and then he walked over. "Hey."

They both nodded in acknowledgment, but neither spoke. This was kind of weird-Thor was usually fairly chatty, especially this early in the morning when no one else wanted to talk-but Clint joined them in their moody brooding without commenting on it. They got in the car, at least, with Steve and Thor squeezing into the back, and Clint turned the radio on to something that wasn't too offensive.

A few minutes later, Natasha hopped into the passenger's seat. "Sorry about that," she apologized, then actually looked at Clint. "Looks like you didn't bother...showering."

He put the car in gear and shrugged. "Didn't seem pressing."

"Personal hygiene is _always _pressing, Barton," she deadpanned. "Especially if we're going to be in a confined space together." She pointedly rolled her window down. Then, to Thor, she said, "Did your father have anything to offer about who we might be dealing with?"

Thor answered, sounding almost...bored. "There are many shapeshifters across the realms. It is likely one of them." He paused, then added, "My father had nothing of import to say."

"But the 'kneel' thing was kinda pointed, don't you think?" Steve asked. "I mean, that seems really...Loki."

"Likely whoever has come to your realm is impersonating my brother to throw us off their trail," Thor said quickly. "If they have any familiarity with your realm, they would know that imitating Loki would be an easy way to buy some time, as it would lead you on a 'wild goose chase.' That would allow them to carry out their true purpose."

Clint narrowed his eyes at the road in front of him. That seemed really...overly complicated. Especially for someone not familiar with the Avengers. Also, "Is it really easy to invade from a different realm or what?"

Thor said slowly, "It...is not as complicated as one might think." He offered nothing else.

The rest of the ride was quiet, but as soon as they walked into SHIELD's land headquarters, they were accosted by a group of agents who escorted them straight up to Fury's office. Clint did his best to avoid looking at anyone as they marched through the building. After what had happened during Loki's first invasion, it had taken a while for people to warm up to him again, to trust that he wasn't going kill anyone else. This whole thing basically served as a reminder of what had happened, and he didn't think he could deal with the nervous glances right now.

Fury, as usual, showed no evidence of his unfortunate early morning. He greeted them with a tense, "Agents. Rogers. Thor. Give me some good news."

"Thor says it's not Loki," Natasha answered, glancing over at Thor. "Said his father checked, and Loki's right where he belongs."

Thor didn't add anything to what Natasha had said. At least until Fury prompted him, "That true?"

"Yes," Thor answered, then, turning an intense gaze on Fury. "It is. My brother is not responsible for this morning's little...show."

Fury frowned. "Then who the hell is? And why are they pretending to be your damn brother?"

"I know nothing for certain. It is possible the shapeshifter is attempting to mask their true identity by imitating Loki. After all, it is no secret that your agency has a certain...interest in him. It would serve as a suitable diversion."

Steve asked, "Have you had any luck figuring out where whoever it was went?"

"No," Fury said. "I have a team working on facial recognition, but we don't have a lot to work with since whoever it is was wearing Barton's face. We're running scans for Loki, but if it's not Loki, then I can stop wasting my resources on that." He pressed a button on his phone and said, "Cancel the search for Loki, that's a goddamn dead end." He turned back to the group. "Okay then, Rogers, Romanoff, Barton, I want you at the scene. Thor, I want you working with the team looking for magical residue on the arrows we recovered. You know something about magic, right?"

Thor answered easily, "Some, yes. I would be pleased to assist you."

Which was...weird. Thor was usually accommodating, yeah, but not quite so...polite about it.

Fury didn't seem put off by it, though. He just barked, "Fan-fucking-tastic. Barton, take Thor down to the new labs before you go. I'm going to have Stark and Banner come in to help out. Then report back to me, I want you at the scene as well."

"Yes, sir," Clint answered. He gestured to Thor, saying, "Come on, all the labs where they do stuff with magic are underground. Security and shit." Honestly, he wasn't really clear what they did down there. _So _not his business.

"Of course."

The two of them left Fury's office and headed towards the elevator. Thor did not speak, and it felt off. Thor had been more than apologetic for what his brother had done last time. And even though Loki wasn't to blame for this, it still seemed like Thor would have _something_ to say about what had happened.

But he didn't.

There were two sets of elevators in the building. There were the ones that accessed the upper floors and the ones that would take you down to the subterranean levels where most things requiring more security were kept. Thor and Clint took the first set of elevators down to the ground floor, and then Clint started leading Thor through the various halls and ramps to the second set.

And still Thor did not speak. Instead, he glanced around, taking in his surroundings. Clint tried to remember if Thor had seen this part of headquarters before, but he couldn't remember. Was this normal behavior for him? Thor wasn't usually so...curious.

When they got to the second set of elevators, the pair waited in silence for the car to arrive. All the while, Clint began to feel more ill at ease, shifting from foot to foot and sneaking glances at Thor, who, in contrast, seemed entirely relaxed. Clint told himself that he was being ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.

They got on the elevator and the doors slid shut. Thor scanned the inside of the elevator as Clint dug his badge out so he could use it to verify his identity. Once he found it, Clint ran the badge through the reader, but as he reached out to press the button for the lab floors, Thor reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"I think," he said coldly, his voice changing as he spoke, "That this illusion has gone on more than long enough."

Clint's stomach dropped. He knew that voice. Knew it very, _very _well.

Goddamn it.

Slowly, he turned his head, looking up.

Thor was gone, and Loki was looking down at him, sneering.

"Barton," he said. "How good it is to see you again."

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**Thanks for reading, awesome readers. Become awesome reviewers, if you're so inclined. I'd be ever so obliged.**


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